


in between black and white

by corneyes



Category: BanG Dream! (Anime), BanG Dream! Girl's Band Party! (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, at the moment anyway, hina isn't either, i swear this was supposed to be fluff but my bias came through, kokoro isn't actually all happy, probably one-sided
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-22 16:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22119193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corneyes/pseuds/corneyes
Summary: Hina sees Aya in ever-growing colors that slither their way past her ribcage and around her heart, tightening their illusory grip until she's gasping for air.
Relationships: Hikawa Hina/Maruyama Aya
Kudos: 60





	in between black and white

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, I love AyaHina. So, I was drawing a comic strip out of boredom (and I've also wanted to draw one for a while now) and this idea came up. I also tend to write stuff like this because self-pity is my middle name and well, have fun.
> 
> F. U. N. 
> 
> Lmao.

She isn't sure when exactly it happened.

She isn't sure how to go about it, how to recognize it, how to assess the reason behind it despite hearing people say that it's not something as simple as a mathematical problem to have a fixed solution, or even an explanation.

She isn't sure if she wants to know either.

"Kokoro-chan."

"Hm?" The blonde-haired girl looks up from the paper she's been scribbling on, her wide smile a constant reassurance that some things can actually stay the same. Or, perhaps not. There isn't anything in the world that could remain as it is. Of course, she knows. She knows and she wishes she doesn't, because believing with eyes closed would have been so much easier. "What is it, Hina?"

Kokoro's voice comes in a high-pitched tone with so much pent-up energy it would have made other people uncomfortable, but not Hina. She found a bit of solace in it. There is something in Kokoro's tone that always comforted her and unsettled her at the same tjme, but she can't put her finger on what exactly it is that makes her feel like so.

Maybe it's also that thing that makes Hina open her heart, even just a little.

A spark of anxiety touches her nerves, and Hina hums to mask the slight twitch of one corner of her mouth.

Something about Kokoro tells her to lay everything bare, and it's precisely why she shouldn't.

But she does, because she doesn't want to think about it.

(She doesn't even know why she thinks about it.)

Because she wants--she _needs_ to have a reason to stop thinking about it, or she would never be able to let it go.

_Silken skin beneath her touch, fluttering eyelashes and soft, strained whispers echoing in her ears._

"What do you think about love?"

_Hina, wait--_

Kokoro's smile wavers, and for the first time, Hina sees genuine confusion swimming in deceptively bright pools of gold. "Love?"

As she watches as the blonde dips her head down, a mixture of relief and unease seeps into her stomach.

After a few moments, Kokoro swiftly raises her head and flashes one of the biggest smiles Hina has ever seen. Pure confidence reinforces her voice as she says, "It's a magical thing that makes everyone smile!"

Hina pauses for a second. "Hm..." she murmurs under her breath. "Ah, a boppin' feeling?"

Kokoro's grin doesn't falter, and Hina has a feeling that it probably never will. Not after this time. "Yeah!"

"...Really?" Hina drawls, leaning back into the cushion of her seat, fumbling with her phone, while Kokoro turns back to her drawing as if the conversation never happened.

Honestly, she'd expected that answer, and Hina knows it wasn't as much a sincere response as it was a subtler approach to change the topic.

Kokoro probably doesn't know either, and Hina isn't sure if she should feel relieved or bothered by it.

It only ends up making her uncomfortable, because she doesn't know what to do next.

_But, this..._

Because she wants to move, but she can't.

_...doesn't feel boppin' at all._

Her mouth curves in the slightest of manners, and the words feel like boiling water on her tongue, dripping and searing and flowing uncontrollably until it leaves a burning mark on her lips.

"Kokoro-chan."

That smile again. It infuriates her. It slides under her skin and slithers all the way into her bones.

God, she hates it when people smile like that.

"Yes?"

The water burns. It burns and it envelops her brain and lays waste to everything that ever crossed her mind.

Everything but the incinerated fragments of words that died on her tongue.

A hand grips soft fabric in tight fistfuls with knuckles turning almost completely white.

"Why," she starts, her eyes never leaving the screen of her phone, and it aches. It aches in ways she can't squeeze into words or phrases or anything intelligible but it's there and it rumbles in the back of her head like thunder--

"Why does it feel like I'm suffocating?"

_

Hina can't stop. She wishes she can, desperately so, but she doesn't because there is nothing in her mind but red lips and flushed cheeks and pink hair drenched with sweat. Hina sees eyes that glimmer in dim yellow lighting and hears breathless mumbles of her own name that struggle to utter protests in between frantic intakes of oxygen.

Hina feels feverishly hot palms holding onto her shirt and around her neck, and the empty touch of phantom hands gliding across her skin even when she's all alone.

She wants it to _stop_.

The sudden grip on her shoulder has her jolting, and she turns to meet worried forest eyes gazing into her own.

"Hina-san, are you all right?"

Hina blinks at the question. That depends on what kind of status she's referring to, she thinks. Her lips stay shut, however. There is an urge to spill her thoughts, to ask the brunette the exact same thing she did to Kokoro, and Hina almost gives in.

But when lime green orbs meet chaotic rose pink embers, she finds herself in search of her own voice.

"Uh-huh," Hina hums, patting Maya's hand and dropping into a stretch. She sends a grin in the brunette's direction, broad and radiant, dismissing the way her heart stuttered painfully within her chest. "Just a little sore from all the rehearsals. I'm fine, I'm fine."

Maya regards her with furrowed eyebrows that make her wonder for a second, before Hina realizes her slip-up. Even then, it's too late to take back her words.

"But I thought you never get sore muscles, Hina-san?"

Hina keeps the smile on her lips as she rises to her feet, walking to the guitar stand where she haphazardly put her guitar in favor of taking a moment to think about the memories playing in the back of her eyes.

"Yeah, well," she says, the expression on her face deliberately nonchalant."I guess there's a first for everything, then!"

She grabs her guitar and slips the strap over her shoulders. Pleading whispers ring in her ears and she strums the strings with as much force as possible without snapping them.

_Ah, it's impossible, isn't it._

"Hey, let's go at it again!"

Hina yells, her smile seemingly etched on her face. She hears an energetic response from her Finnish bandmate, a fond sigh from the blonde actress, and sees a puzzled smile on the drummer's face, and she tries her hardest to resist the pull but she looks anyway and she regrets it almost immediately.

She sees pastel pink hair, gleaming cherry blossom eyes, and shoulders a tad too rigid even for her.

Hina sees the tinge of fear peppering the eyes that haunted her like a broken memory, and her stomach lurches in something that spikes recognition in her.

_I'm sorry._

"Come on, Aya-chan!" She beams, rocking on her heels. "Hurry up!"

Hina watches Aya hesitate in her steps, and she smiles even wider.

Wide enough for her cheeks to rip itself apart if she tried to stretch it further.

Hina wonders if her smile has always felt so hollow.

_I'm sorry, Aya-chan._

_

Hina swears she hears her voice even before she opens her mouth, and sees her mind bleeding into disturbing hues of green and blue.

"H-Hina," Aya calls out to her hesitantly, weakly, her voice caressing Hina's ears like soft satin. "I think... I think we need to talk."

There it is. Hina adjusts her grip on the strap of her duffel bag on her shoulder, humming a song in between uneven breaths. She inhales, feeling the air flow in her bloodstream like magma, heating up her veins and lungs until it almost feels like they're going to burst. Hina twists around to face Aya. Her knees tremble in the most inconspicuous way, and Hina has to shift her footing even after she turns her body.

She smiles, and Hina hopes she could stop seeing gleams of leaves and sapphire whenever she looks at Aya.

"About what, Aya-chan?"

Aya takes a moment to find the words to say. Small, pale hands tighten their grip on the fabric of her plain white shirt, and Hina recalls the sensation of having them tugging at her scalp--

It doesn't make her _smile_.

Hina smiles but it's barely one.

It's just a thin line of stretched lips like guitar strings on the verge of snapping. Sometimes, Hina feels like cutting it off herself. People seem to like it on her, however, even her sister, despite her constant rejection, so Hina kept it on. She wore it the way she dressed herself in light, pastel colors in performances. She reflected happiness the way her eyes shone in painful yet bright streaks of light.

It's just one of the things you get used to, and Hina supposes she has to thank Kokoro for providing an excellent example.

"About, um," Aya almost chokes out, her hands letting go of her shirt just to fiddle with it. "About last week."

_Hina, wait, stop. I--_

"Oh, last week." Hina bounces on the tips of her toes to hide the increasing quivers of her knees. "What, at the fan meet? Chisato says she told the staff to omit your cringy moments, but they slipped it into the video anyway. Well, it was pretty funny so I think we'll get more views thanks to you," she says, snickering behind her fist.

A sprinkle of red rises from the visible skin above the collar of Aya's to the tip of her ears, and Hina tries her hardest not to think about it."T-That's... That's not what I wanted to talk about! It's th--"

"I know."

"W-What?" Aya's hands fall limp to her sides, and her eyes grow a fraction wider.

"I said," Hina speaks with her overused smile plastered on her face. "I know, Aya-chan."

"You... What...?" Confusion clouds over rose pink irises before it's replaced by something just a bit more nervous. "Then...!"

There's a tiny pinch inside Hina's ribcage, a vague feeling that's only growing more and more familiar by the minute.

"So? What about it?" She asks while rolling her shoulders, resisting the temptation to look into Aya's eyes, and maybe, just maybe, see something other than worry and apprehension for once. "It happened. It's past us. What's there to talk about, Aya-chan?"

Hina hears a faint gasp, and she turns to see Aya playing with her fingers nervously, looking down at her shoes like she did whenever she saw particularly harsh criticisms on the internet.

The flashes of green are brighter yet darker, in ways Hina could never find the words to explain, and it consumes her like the ever-present scent of cinnamon that accompanies the whispers of sweet nothings in her ears.

"I-I just," Aya mumbles, and Hina feels rather than sees her steeling herself to look up and meet her eyes. "I just wanted to ask if you told anyone."

There it is.

Of course.

Hina feels another smile pull on the corners of her lips.

"No. I didn't." She whistles playfully. "What even happened on that day? I don't remember anything. Do you?"

A beat passes, and Hina sees a small grin on Aya's face and she doesn't look away fast enough to miss the glassy relief that glazed her eyes.

Hina remembers Friday, after practice, when her lips met smooth, porcelain skin and watched primrose eyes glazed in something that made her breath hitch. She recalls her chest constricting in a delightful kind of agony, and she thinks.

She thinks about how excruciatingly fascinating it was for a familiar burn to devour her in a way that was so much more painful than the first time.

"Hina..." Aya's smile could light up stars. "Thank you!"

Hina smiles back, brighter than ever, straining the muscles of her cheeks, and she sees herself reflected in the mirror just behind Aya.

What an unpleasant smile.

"Wanna go to Tsugumi's? I'm going to buy their new special for my sister."

"Okay!"

Hina's mind fills itself in a river of colors; of grass and the sky--

And she drowns in it wholeheartedly.


End file.
